Our Sages tell us that HaKodesh Baruch Hu, the Holy One Blessed Be He, weeps when a Jewish home is torn apart by of divorce. Unfortunately, He must be crying quite a lot these days, judging from the vast number of divorcees you discover on the pages of Facebook. Just as every Jewish wedding adds another stone to the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash, every divorce keeps it in ruins. Since the Fast of Tammuz is almost upon us, marking the beginning of the Three Weeks leading to Tisha B’Av, when we mourn over the destruction of Yerushalayim and the Holy Temple, I thought it appropriate to say a few things about marriage.

Thanks to the good graces of God, a lot of hard work, and lowering my head whenever my wife is upset with me, I have been married nearly thirty years now to the same wonderful, emotional, sensitive, and sometimes stubborn, irrational, and tempestuous woman that I married. In the course of those three decades, we have seen our share of couple’s therapists, and my wife has studied the subject enough to have become a practicing marriage counselor and coach herself. For my small part, I have helped dozens of couples deal with their marital problems through my website, www.jewishsexuality.com. And now, thank God, my wife and I are beginning to counsel the oldest of our seven children who was recently wed.

Yes, marriage is not easy. Yes, it is a challenge as demanding as climbing Mount Everest. Yes, you may have to sacrifice some of your toes in the effort to reach the incomparable peace and stillness you discover at the peak of the climb. But, it’s the best blessing there is, especially when you are fortunate enough to be raising a family in the Land of Israel.

One thing I have learned to avoid, as best as I can, is anger. The holy Kabbalist, the Arizal, teaches that anger is the worst of all the bad character traits. He explains that while every bad character trait and transgression blemish a part of one’s spiritual blueprint, and even physical anatomy, the blemish can be repaired by sincere tshuva and atonement. In contrast, when a person becomes angry, his Divine Soul flees from him, and he receives a lesser animal soul in its place. Ever notice how people look like beasts when they get angry? Their human character seems to leave their faces, and they look like wild animals. The reason is because their Divine Soul has fled, and the work of restoring it to its place, the Arizal writes, can take years and years of penitence.

In a marriage, if either the wife or husband gets angry, and the other responds with anger in return, then the heavyweight prizefight begins. Our Sages teach us that the Hebrew words for man and woman, איש andאשה have the letters alef,shin,yud, and hai. But when there is anger between them, the yud and hai flee, letters which stand for the Name of God, symbolizing the loss of the Presence of God in the home. Now, only the letters alef and shin remain, אש meaning fire. And how many fire engines are needed to put out the flames!

What’s the solution? Very simple. When my wife gets angry, I lower my head and agree that she’s right. Even though I know that she may not be justified about her immediate complaint, I tell myself that I surely did something else that has brought upon her outburst. A woman has radar and senses when she has been slighted or betrayed. At the moment, she may think she is angry because I forgot to buy tomatoes at the supermarket, and how can she make a loving salad for her family without tomatoes? And, yes, what a rotten husband I am, but I know that the tomatoes she is angry about are not the tomatoes you buy in the supermarket, but about the attractive women I glanced at while I was shopping there.

So when my wife throws a punch, I lower my head and duck, knowing that she is right, that I assuredly did something wrong, and that her anger is God’s way of informing me that I have to do tshuva and mend my erring behavior or thoughts. This way, after throwing a few punches and not finding a hittable target, she gets tired and quits. But if I were to hit back with the very first blow, God forbid, it would turn out to be another “Thriller in Manila” with Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier exchanging murderous blows until the final, 15th-round bell.

The key word in a successful marriage is humility. A husband and wife must be ready to admit that they’ve made a mistake, that they’ve acted selfishly, that they haven’t been considerate enough of the other’s feelings and needs. They have to be ready to listen to each other – really listen. If not, the alternative is to destroy one’s family and end up married to Facebook. While an old, popular bestseller and movie proclaimed that “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” in real life, the very opposite is true.

Equally sad at this time of year, when our Holy Temple needs rebuilding, and when every new marriage could add another foundation stone in its construction, is that there are myriads of Jews who remain single for years and years on end. On Facebook, many of them report that they are “in a relationship.” Yalla! How long can you be in a relationship? I asked my wife to marry me after our fourth date. What’s everyone so afraid of?

One of the reasons, making things so difficult in our day and age, is that there are so many candidates to choose from, why should a person marry X when there are thousands of attractive Y’s on Facebook that he still hasn’t met? The options are overwhelming. So how does a person decide?

Well, if your potential spouse has yirat shamayim (the reverence of God), chances are that when problems arise in the marriage, he or she will have the faith and sense of holy commitment to work things out. And if you sense that you get along with the person whom you are dating, enjoy each other’s company, and look forward to your next meeting, that’s a trustworthy sign that you have a good base. And if, on top of these two basic foundations, the person expresses a sincere desire to raise up your children in the blessed pathways of Torah, then what are you waiting for? You’re not madly in love? Why should you be after four or five dates? Love, like good wine, develops with time. Lust can arise at first glance, but love takes time. True love occurs after the wedding – not before it. So don’t expect or demand that you feel fireworks before you get married. It’s nice if it happens, but most of the time, it’s not real. Love comes with waking up to diaper the children in the middle of the night, and with putting your ego aside to set your spouse’s wishes above yours own egotistical demands, and with keeping silent in humility when your spouse is feeling jittery and lets you have it over the head with a frying pan for something you think you didn’t do.

There are two more secrets about marriage which can save you a lot of needless pain and trouble. According to the Kabbalah, many divorces stem from the negative spiritual forces which are created in the home through improper sexual relations between husband and wife. These impure, negative forces cause the Shechinah (Divine Presence) to flee from the home, and form a barrier between the couple. This negative energy is very often the spiritual root of much of the anger, irritability, and unhappiness in the marriage, as well as problems with children.

One other thing which can turn the home into hell is when the husband watches immodest things on the Internet. This also creates negative spiritual forces (known as kelipot) which wreak havoc in the house. The husband’s positive loving energy and love, which should have naturally gone to the wife, goes instead to nourishing these negative spiritual forces when the husband lusts after other women. When the wife picks this up on her unique feminine radar, sensing that she is being denied the attention and pure, holy love she deserves, she goes wild. She may blame her husband for a thousand different things, not knowing the real source of her unrest and anger, and he strikes back, feeling unjustly accused, but the reason for the explosion is that he didn’t take care to guard his eyes from lusting after other women, and this can destroy the home as much as any physical fire. Thus, by engaging in proper, spiritually healthy, marital relations, a new joy and love will be discovered and the Shechinah will surely fill the home.

May Hashem have mercy on His People, and return His Divine Presence to Zion with the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash, may it be soon!

About the Author:Tzvi Fishman was awarded the Israel Ministry of Education Prize for Creativity and Jewish Culture for his novel "Tevye in the Promised Land." For the past several years, he has written a popular and controversial blog at Arutz 7. A wide selection of his books are available at Amazon.
The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of The Jewish Press

If you don't see your comment after publishing it, refresh the page.

Our comments section is intended for meaningful responses and debates in a civilized manner. We ask that you respect the fact that we are a religious Jewish website and avoid inappropriate language at all cost.

If you promote any foreign religions, gods or messiahs, lies about Israel, anti-Semitism, or advocate violence (except against terrorists), your permission to comment may be revoked.

6 Responses to “Married? Still Single? Divorced? This is for You!”

Well, Hashem could help us find compatible mates, that way he wouldn’t have to cry on our behalf. Divorces aren’t gotten for fun, but because there is either a grave and insurmountable mismatch, or life circumstances which part people who’d like to stay together, but can’t.

Great post Tzvi and as I read your last sentence “May Hashem have mercy on His People, and return His Divine Presence to Zion with the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash, may it be soon” my Shabbat studies/review today came into mind. Exodus 25:8 “Let them make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.” From MeAm Lo’Ez Vol 9 pg 26, “G-d literally said that if the Israelites make the Tabernacle, ‘I will dwell inside them.’ Since he was speaking of the Tabernacle, He should have said, ‘I will dwell inside it.’ But this teaches that the main element of the Tabernacle was not the boards and other materials out of which it was built. The main element was the purity of heart on the part of the Israelites who built the Tabernacle. They had to be good, G-d fearing Jews, and spiritual people. Then they would be able to cause the Divine Presence to dwell inside them – literally – since they would be closely attached to G-d.”.

So, getting back to your article, Tzvi, looking at porn and/or sinning in other ways will drive away the Divine Presence from the individual and thus keep the Tabernacle destroyed. The commandments were given to us so as to be kept in Israel; so, by you coming to Israel, which is a big mitzvah, helps rebuild the Beit HaMikdash. May you all come to Israel soon.

Dear Yehuda, I am Tzvi’s wife. I don’t have a facebook account so I am using his. Let me assure you that my husband is a real sweetheart, as loving and considerate as could be, always trying to help others, always filling our house with guests and doing everything he can to bring people closer to Israel and Torah. I am aware that sometimes he says controversial things that can upset people, and I tell him to soften his tone, but he believes that some people are so far away they have to be shaken up in order to break through their walls. He’s a wonderful guy! You just have to learn to appreciate his sense of humor, that’s all.

Tzvi Fishman: “I have been married nearly thirty years now to the same wonderful, emotional, sensitive, and sometimes stubborn, irrational, and tempestuous woman. My wife has studied the subject enough to have become a practicing marriage counselor and coach herself. A woman has radar and senses when she has been slighted or betrayed.”.

Warning! Radar Overload! CRASH! BANG! Mrs. Fishman, get your husband to retract these words from the blog. In all of the years that Tzvi has been posting, we have not heard one word from you; so, you must be a woman with a tolerance and patience of steel. You should be awarded the prize that Tzvi got for his book for without you it would not have happened. Kol HaKavod!